Category Archives: Uncategorized

Since last November we have been operating with a much-reduced committee and overall structure:

Dick Allwright: General Coordinator

Joan Allwright: CNDUK Liaison

Graham Bartram: Liaison with other like-minded campaigning groups

Andrea King: Membership

Jean Wangermann: Treasurer

We decided to maintain our formal links with CNDUK and with the Cumbria and Lancashire Area CND group, for which Dick Allwright is currently Secretary.

We agreed to continue to hold an AGM each autumn.

In the absence of a Newsletter Editor we decided to communicate with members by e-mail, having established a list of about 30 households who wished to be kept in touch with LDCND activities.

We decided also keep the website open, in spite of our serious difficulties in keeping it properly up to date.

Given our healthy financial situation, we also decided to invite suggestions concerning campaigning projects we might be able to support financially.

For a full account see below the message sent out to all members after the meeting.

This message is going just to the thirty or so people/households who responded to our 4th December letter, saying they positively wanted to be kept in touch with developments in Lancaster District CND.

Members of the Committee met recently, as promised, to put together a general plan for the future of our CND group, which would then be presented at an Emergency General Meeting in the late spring. We decided, however, that it would perhaps not be necessary or helpful to put people to the trouble of attending a further public meeting. We hope instead that this letter, which sets out our plans, will suffice.

Firstly, although it is very reassuring for us to have thirty or so people/households who want to keep in touch, we still do not have enough members to maintain the active campaigning level of earlier years. We do, however, have a very healthy bank balance of more than £800. We have therefore decided that our best strategy is to try to keep ourselves well informed about nuclear issues, to undertake ‘low-level’ campaigning such as letter-writing, and take a stall at the Green Party Christmas Fair to maintain our campaigning fund. We will continue to offer financial support as follows:

affiliation fees and regular monthly donations to National CND,

our contribution to CNDUK’s Public Liability Fund,

our contribution to Cumbria and Lancashire Area CND’s affiliation fee to CNDUK,

the Campaign Against Depleted Uranium (CADU),

the Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases (CAAB).

We also decided to use our financial resources for supporting other relevant projects as they arise. One example is our very successful series of ‘peace education’ events with local schools.

Secondly, we will operate with a reduced committee, who will meet as and when necessary. Dick Allwright will act as a general co-ordinator and use e-mail (and the postal service as necessary) to relay information to you about nuclear issues. Joan Allwright will liaise with National CND. Graham Bartram will liaise with other campaigning groups. Andrea King will continue to look after membership issues. Jean Wangermann will hand over her Treasurer role to Dick Allwright, but will maintain a financial role as co-signatory on our bank account. We will continue to have the accounts audited as usual, with an annual report to an AGM in the autumn.

Thirdly, we will keep the website open to post occasional messages and carry links to National CND and other relevant groups. However, since we have no website manager we can no longer promise to keep it up-to-date. If you know of anyone who might be able to actively manage the website for us, please get in touch!

Fourthly, we will continue to accept membership fees, which we promise to use for campaigning, but of course we do expect a drop in income if just thirty or so people/households remain members. We will reduce our expenditures accordingly. Using e-mail instead of mailing a paper newsletter will already save us about £120 annually.

Fifthly, given our healthy financial situation, we would welcome suggestions concerning projects (especially local ones) that we might be able to support financially.

We would very much welcome your feedback on our proposals, however, so please let us have your reactions.

Meanwhile, we are very conscious that we need to make renewing Trident an issue in the 7th May General Election. The least we can do is go to any local hustings to question the candidates. Churches Together has scheduled a hustings in St Thomas’s church in Penny Street, Lancaster for 7.30 on Wednesday, April 15 (poster attached). Questions need to be submitted by 7.15 on the day. We will prepare a question on Trident.